Hyperloop One told WIRED it has held conversations with the government and private companies about potential UK routes and “there’s been quite a strong response” from the government. UK government representatives also attended Hyperloop One’s much-publicised propulsion test in Nevada, in May 2016.

The comments were made by Alan James, global VP of business development at Hyperloop One, who previously lobbied for UK Ultraspeed before joining the company.

Advertisement

“Innovate UK has taken the lead on that. It is joining together the department of Business, Innovation and Skills, and DFT [Department For Transport], to produce a coordinated response to the hyperloop opportunity.”

An Italian rapper, a 'hangman's noose' and a $250m lawsuit: the chaotic race to build Elon Musk's hyperloop

Read next

Monday briefing: Europe's first hyperloop test track is under construction

ByWIRED

“It’s very early stages,” a spokesperson for Innovate UK confirmed to WIRED. “This is a really exciting technology and we’re following it with interest.”

The company has also held conversations with the Peel Group, which owns the Manchester Canal route, about a Manchester-Liverpool route.

“Hyperloop could connect all the great cities of the English north not just to London, but to each other,” said James. “Making Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, effectively a single city, for instance.”

He also suggests hyperloop would be a cheaper and faster alternative to HS2, “which is currently, I believe, the most expensive railway project humanity has ever undertaken, on a per-kilometre basis.

Advertisement

“To take a UK example, London to Manchester would be 18 minutes. With High Speed Rail, we could reduce the journey time from London to Stoke from one hour 24 minutes to around one hour. With Hyperloop, we can reduce it to around 14 minutes.”

A recovery vehicle and a test sled sit on rails after the first test of Hyperloop One's propulsion system

David Becker / Getty

Elsewhere, the engineering giant ARUP, which has partnered with Hyperloop One, is consulting with the company over potential UK routes, including the use of tunnels instead of raised pylons.

“You could anticipate it could be quite cost effective,” said John Miles, an engineer at ARUP. “Our angle is looking at: what if we could build the first of its kind development here in the UK? What would the routes look like? I think Hyperloop has the potential to bring the London Underground experience to the national picture.”

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, the other LA-based startup attempting to build the first hyperloop, also said it had been in contact with the UK government.

Advertisement

“I met David Cameron. He was talking about £50million that he can give us through Innovate UK,” says Bibop Gresta, HTT’s chief operating officer, chairman, and ‘chief bibop officer’. (10 Downing Street declined to comment for this story.)

Hyperloop One currently has feasibility studies underway or completed in Russia, Dubai and the Nordics. HTT, meanwhile, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Slovakia to explore potential routes in the country.

A visualisation of HTT's proposed Quay Valley hyperloop

HTT/JumpStartFund

Of course, all of these statements should be taken with an enormous spoonful of salt: while Hyperloop One is building a prototype in Nevada, no working hyperloop prototype has yet been built. Some engineers doubt that it would work, and dispute the idea’s projected engineering costs.

And, as our investigation revealed, both Hyperloop startups are having their own issues – from the $250million lawsuit between Hyperloop One’s co-founders, to doubts over the legitimacy of HTT’s public claims.

Experts told WIRED that any passenger routes would likely take years, if not decades, due to the regulatory requirements, the cost of acquiring land, and other complex procedures inherent to large infrastructure projects. “This is a technology that is so unproven,” said Dan Sperling, founding director of the Institute Of Transportation Studies at the university of California. “They need to demonstrate that it works at scale.”

“There’s some real challenges in there, and they shouldn’t be trivialized,” added Miles. “It will take years to engineer a system that works.”

For the rest of the wild story, read WIRED’s full feature on the hyperloop here.